Microcontroller Based Design

Dr Mohsin Tiwana
 Interrupts

2
Basics

Single Microcontroller can serve many devices

There are 2 ways of doing it

1. Polling
2. Interrupt

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Polling

 Microcontroller continuously monitors the status of a

given device

 When condition is met, it performs service and then

moves on to monitor the next device

 JNB TF0,$

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Interrupt

 An event that informs microcontroller that a device needs

service / attention

 Whenever a device needs attention, it sends an interrupt

to microcontroller

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Polling Vs Interrupt
 A phone with a ringer and a phone without a ringer

 Polling (Phone without a ringer): means that you pick up

the phone regularly to see if someone is on the other end

 Interrupt (Phone with a ringer): means you can do what

you want and the phone will ring to interrupt you when
someone is on the other end

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Polling Vs Interrupt

 Polling
 Microcontroller can serve many devices
 Time wasted in waiting for certain conditions
 While waiting, no other task can be performed

 Interrupt
 Microcontroller can serve many devices
 Time not wasted in waiting for certain conditions
 Microcontroller can perform others tasks and anytime a device
can interrupt it

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Interrupts in 8051
6 Interrupts

1. Reset
2. Timer 0 overflow
3. Timer 1 overflow
4. Reception / Transmission of serial character
5. External Event 0
6. External Event 1

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Interrupt SFRs

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Interrupt SFRs
 IE
 Interrupt Enable
 Bit Addressable

 IP
 Interrupt Priority
 Bit addressable

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Interrupt SFRs
 Interrupt Enable – IE

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Interrupt SFRs
Interrupt Enable – IE

 Set EA (Global Interrupt Enable - Bit 7) high to enable any

interrupt

 Set the bit of required interrupt in IE to enable it

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Interrupt SFRs
Interrupt Priority – IP
 2 Levels of interrupt in 8051
 0 (Low priority)
 1 (High priority)

 Priorities of 5 interrupts can be set

 All interrupts except Reset

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Interrupt SFRs
 Interrupt Priority – IP

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Interrupt SFRs
Interrupt Priority – IP
 Nothing can interrupt a high priority interrupt – not even
another high priority interrupt
 A high priority interrupt may interrupt low priority
interrupt
 A low priority interrupt may only occur if no other
interrupt is already being executed
 If 2 interrupts occur at same time, interrupt of higher
priority will execute first
 If both interrupts have same priority, Polling Sequence
(Next Slide) will determine which interrupt will be
executed first

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Polling Sequence

 External 0 interrupt

 Timer 0 Interrupt

 External 1 Interrupt

 Timer 1 Interrupt

 Serial Interrupt

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IVT
Interrupt Vector Table
 For every interrupt, there is a fixed location in memory
that holds address of its ISR
 ISR is Interrupt Service Routine
 When an interrupt is generated, its ISR is automatically
executed

 The group of memory locations that hold the addresses of

ISRs is called Interrupt Vector Table (IVT)

 IVT is located in ROM

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IVT of 8051

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Interrupt Flags
 Timer Control – TCON SFR

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Interrupt Flags
 Timer Control – TCON SFR

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Interrupt Flags
 Serial Control – SCON SFR

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Interrupt Flags - Summary

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Clearing Interrupt Flags

 Interrupt flags cleared automatically, except

 Serial Interrupt.
 Serial Interrupt flags are to be manually reset

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What Happens when an Interrupt Occurs?
 Execution of current instruction is completed
 PC is saved on stack, low byte first
 Interrupts of same and lower priorities are blocked
 It jumps to memory location called IVT that keeps
addresses of ISRs
 PC is loaded with address of ISR
 ISR is executed until “RETI” is reached

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What happens when an interrupt ends?
 RETI ends the execution of ISR

 RETI clears the interrupt flags

 Except Serial
 Serial Flags are to be manually reset

 2 Bytes from STACK are Popped and loaded in PC

 Program resumes from where it left before interrupt

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Important Consideration
Take care of registers
 ISR may change value of useful registers and flags
 A
 B
 PSW
 Carry
 Auxiliary Carry

 May be saved using STACK

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Short Interrupt Routine

ORG 00h
JMP MAIN

ORG 00Bh ; Timer 0 ISR

CPL P1.0
RETI

ORG 30h
MAIN:
.
.
END

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Long Interrupt Routine
ORG 00h
JMP MAIN

ORG 00Bh ; Timer 0 ISR

JMP TOISR

ORG 30h
MAIN:
.
.
JMP MAIN

TOISR: .
.
RETI
END
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Timer Interrupt

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Timer Interrupt
Generate 10 Khz Square Wave using Timer 0 Interrupt
Using
 Polling
 Interrupt

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Timer – Polling
Generate 10 Khz Square Wave using Timer 0 Without Interrupt
ORG 00h

MOV TMOD,#02h
MOV TH0,# – 50
MOV TL0, # –50
SETB TR0

AGAIN:
JNB TF0,$
CLR TF0
CPL P1^0
JMP AGAIN

END

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Timer – Interrupt
Generate 10 Khz Square Wave using Timer 0 Interrupt
ORG 00h
JMP MAIN

ORG 00Bh ; Timer 0 ISR

CPL P1^0
RETI

ORG 30h
MAIN:
MOV TMOD,#02h
MOV TH0,# – 50
MOV TL0, # –50
SETB TR0
MOV IE, #82h
SJMP $

END

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External Interrupts

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External Interrupts
 Two External Interrupts
 INT0
 INT1
 Pins
 P3.2
 P3.3
 Two activation levels
 Level Triggered
 Edge Triggered
 IF IT0 or IT1 (in TCON) is set, it will make INT0 or INT1
Edge Triggered. Else they will be level triggered
 Default mode is level trigger

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External Interrupts
 TCON SFR

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External Interrupts
Level Triggered
 Default mode

 Interrupt Pins (P3.2 and P3.3) are normally High

 LOW level signal triggers the interrupt

 LOW level input must be removed before end of ISR,

otherwise interrupted will be generated again

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External Interrupts
Edge Triggered
 By making IT0 and IT1, external interrupts will be edge
triggered

 External source must be high for at least 1 machine cycle, and

then Low for at least 1 machine cycle

 For another interrupt to be recognized, pin must go back to a

logic high state and then brought back

 During execution of ISR, external interrupt pin is ignored, no

matter how many times it makes High-to-Low transitions
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